Locally assembled auto sales rise 9% to over 22,000 units

KARACHI: Sales of locally assembled automobiles, including jeeps and light commercial vehicles, increased to 22,380 units in March 2018, up 9% compared with 20,505 units in the same month of the previous year, showed data released by the Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association (Pama).

A nominal decline of 1% was recorded in March 2018 when compared with February despite normal working days in the month, indicating a slowdown in demand growth as first quarter of the calendar year was generally a robust period for auto sales, said research house Topline Securities in its comments.

“A change in import procedure, availability of auto finance at lower rates and demand from online ride-hailing services contributed to the demand in March,” said Topline analyst Rai Omar Basharat.

Cumulatively, industry sales in first nine months of the current fiscal year 2017-18 exhibited 22% growth to 192,734 units.

Honda Atlas Cars (HCAR) outperformed its peers, posting 41% growth in sales on a year-on-year basis and 19% on a month-on-month basis.

“These are the highest monthly sales in the history of the company at 5,344 units due to the success of recently revamped City, strong demand for Civic and rebound in sales of sport utility vehicle BRV,” the analyst added.